Blog Hogs

The Last Letter Standing

02/22/2012 3:51 PM - Mike Peck

I’m not sure if a team has ever lost three players in one season who wore letters. Should Brian Fahey, Rockford’s lone remaining captain, be nervous?

With the trade of Brandon Segal on Tuesday to Tampa Bay, Rockford is now without a team captain. Fahey previously shared the “A” with Brett McLean, but when McLean left the organization for Switzerland, the alternate captains were Fahey and Brian Connelly, who wore the letter fulltime.

Connelly of course was dealt to Calgary and now Fahey is the last letter standing! Rockford only had Segal and Fahey don the letters after Connelly’s departure. IceHogs head Coach Ted Dent will eventually have to name a new captain, and the logical “C” would be Fahey, and not because of his previous status.

Just because a player has been around the game the longest doesn’t mean that he’s a shoe-in to be the next leader. Fahey, however, has been great on and off the ice and is the elder statesman in the locker room. That of course isn’t saying much as right now 16 of the 23 players on Rockford’s roster is either a first or second year player.

Of the seven players with more than two years experience, four of them (Simon Danis-Pepin, Brandon Svendsen, Wade Brookbank and Matt Fornataro) have only been here for a short time and one of the others is goalie Alexander Salak. Brookbank did wear an “A” for 24 games last season.

With the NHL trade deadline looming on Monday, I wouldn’t be surprised if a new “C” is named until next week. Two logical alternate’s would include Rostislav Olesz and Ben Smith.

With as young as this team is, a second year player is more than likely going to end up in a letter and that’s a little unusual.

Speaking of the trade deadline, it’ll be interesting to see the movement and how it affects the IceHogs. This team can’t get any younger, can it?

Good Thing We Brought Shovels

02/18/2012 11:25 AM - Mike Peck

So apparently the IceHogs feel comfortable fighting from behind on the road. Last night’s game featured another 3-0 hole and another comeback for Rockford which is now 4-1-1-1 when trailing entering ther second period on the road since Jan. 8.

Last night’s comeback, even though it came up short of a win, was probably the most unlikely. Toronto has the best home record in the AHL this season and had a record of 21-0-1-0 when leading after two periods. Three unanswered goals by the IceHogs dug them out of the hole and the team earned a point despite the OT loss.

We spent the night in Toronto last night and we’re busing into Hamilton before the game this afternoon so no morning skate.

Tonight’s game in Hamilton should be interesting as the Bulldogs roster got a little makeover yesterday. Blake Geoffrion will make his Hamilton’s debut tonight and with Aaron Palushaj back in Hamilton from Montreal, this team has some firepower.

Talk about pressure for Geoffrion; his grandfather and great grandfather are both hall-of-famers with the Canadians. There is already a lot of pressure on player in Montreal, but Geoffrion will come with some family history weighing on him.

Peter LeBlanc returns home tonight and is still rolling along. After a slow start that saw LeBlanc notch four assists in his first nine games and the was a healthy scratch for three straight contests, the Hamilton native has 17g-11a-28pts in his 27 games since.

I mentioned on the broadcast last night that a few of the boys in the dressing room were having some fun with Andrew Shaw and the recent Twitter phenomenon that is #Shawfacts. The greaseboard in the dressing room had some #Shawfacts listed and below were some of my favorites:

Shawford IceHogs #Shawfacts
Andrew Shaw doesn’t wear sunscreen, the sun wears Shawscreen.
Andrew Shaw won the World Series of Poker with a 2, 3, 7, 9 and an Uno card.
Andrew Shaw won a medal of honor for a war that he never fought in.

Funny stuff! If you go to Twitter, search #Shawfacts and you can see some of the funny Shaw Facts that fans came up with. At one point, Shaw was trending on Twitter!